Diego de Almagro el Mozo

Diego de Almagro , called Diego el Mozo ("the boy"), (also d'Almagro; * around 1520 in Panama , † September 1542 in Cusco ) was the son of the conquistador of the same name . He briefly took power in New Castile (Peru) in 1541 and rebelled against the Spanish crown.

Diego de Almagro "el Mozo" was the son of Diego de Almagro "el Viejo" ("the old man") and a Panamanian Indian . A contemporary who knew him personally described the 18-year-old as a youth of stately appearance and perfect rider, well educated, more like his father than the indigenous mother, dark-skinned and almost beardless. His father conquered the Inca empire together with the Pizarro brothers , but got into a dispute with them over rule in the country, was defeated by Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro in the Battle of Las Salinas in 1538 and executed soon afterwards.

After the violent death of his father, his followers (several hundred) gathered around the young Diego. On June 26, 1541, Almagro's followers, led by Juan de Rada , murdered Francisco Pizarro in his Lima home . Juan de Rada had Almagro proclaimed captain general of Peru. Chief Justice Cristóbal Vaca de Castro came from Spain, who was supposed to settle the party feud between Pizarrists and Almagrists. In the (meanwhile) case of the death of Francisco Pizarro, the king had decreed that Vaca de Castro should take over the office of governor of the colony.

Almagro and many of his followers did not want to bow to this, however, and a military conflict broke out. Almagro was defeated on September 16, 1542 in the battle of Chupas near today's Huamanga (Ayacucho), brought to Cusco and executed with 40 of his followers.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kirkpatrick, FA: The Spanish Conquistadors , Goldmanns Yellow Pocket Books 859, Munich, p. 156

literature

• William Hickling Prescott : History of the Conquest of Peru . 2 vols. Brockhaus, Leipzig (1848)
• John Hemming: The Conquest of the Incas. Mariner, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-0-15-602826-4 .